Cloud operators lease computational resources to clients of the cloud operators, and the clients execute applications using the leased computational resources. This arrangement tends to be mutually beneficial for the cloud operators and the clients. For example, a client has access to relatively high-end computing equipment, which may be prohibitively expensive for the client to purchase and may further be cumbersome for the client to maintain. The cloud operator, due to economies of scale, may be able to purchase a server computing device at a lower price compared to a price the client would have to pay for the server computing device. Furthermore, the cloud operator can employ professionals to maintain the servers and other hardware.
Typically, a client of a cloud operator will set forth a request indicating the computational resources desired by the client when executing a particular application of the client. Oftentimes, the client or the application itself will request “X” amount of processing resources (e.g., a certain number of microprocessor cores or a particular amount of processing capability) and “Y” amount of persistent storage.
To service such requests from multiple clients, cloud operators use data centers, which conventionally comprise several racks of server devices that are communicatively coupled over a local area network (LAN). Each server device comprises a respective central processing unit (CPU), and each CPU has at least one microprocessor core. Each server device additionally includes a respective persistent storage unit, such as hard disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD). A CPU of a server device resides on a motherboard, and a storage unit of the server device is coupled to the motherboard by way of a bus (e.g., via the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), or other suitable interface).
There are numerous deficiencies associated with conventional data centers used by cloud operators to service clients thereof. First, cloud operators have traditionally allocated computational and storage resources in units of physical server devices. A client, however, may request computational resources at a more granular level. Traditionally, the cloud operator has handled such a request by under-utilizing computing resources on server devices in the data center. For example, a client may request processing resources associated with six microprocessor cores of a CPU in a server device of the data center, where the CPU comprises eight cores. Traditionally, the cloud operator allocates the entirety of the server device to the client, which may cause two of the eight microprocessor cores to be fallow.
Second, conventional server devices utilized in data centers include CPUs that consume relatively large amounts of power (about 1000 Watts of thermal dissipation per CPU). This further causes the data center to have cooling costs to maintain an appropriate temperature. Third, componentry of a conventional server device used in a data center is relatively expensive and complex. For example, the server device includes a motherboard, where the motherboard has a CPU thereon that must be connected to additional hardware componentry (e.g., a graphics processing unit (GPU), memory, . . . ). Due to the relatively high cost of the motherboard and componentry thereon, if an individual component of the motherboard (such as the graphics processing unit (GPU)) malfunctions, maintenance costs are incurred by removing the server from the rack, removing the motherboard from the server, removing the faulty GPU from the motherboard, placing a new GPU on the motherboard, testing the motherboard, inserting the motherboard back into the server device, repositioning the server device in the rack, and reconnecting the server device to a local area network (LAN).